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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28609263">the first of many, yes,</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/4hoots/pseuds/4hoots'>4hoots</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff without Plot, Literal Sleeping Together, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, that's it folks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:47:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,394</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28609263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/4hoots/pseuds/4hoots</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is new; this chance to simply lay next to each other, purposefully close.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora &amp; Bow &amp; Catra &amp; Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>157</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the first of many, yes,</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>only rated t cause theyre a little grabby</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">The first night isn’t the one that matters. The first night after the war, they’re so physically exhausted that when sleep comes, they all end up pillowed on plain grass, ever-expansive from She-Ra’s power. Catra curls around Adora’s feet, tail flicking against her calf. The arrow boy and Sparkles are part of the mess, but it’s imprecise, a tangle of limbs.</p>
<p class="p1">The first night, they simply sleep, recover, heal.</p>
<p class="p1">It isn’t even the second, or the third. They sleep one night in Mara’s ship, another in a tent, yet another on the edge of the Fright Zone. An entire week of insignificant nights pass, nights Catra spends curled up tight against Adora in some shape or form; spines aligned, hugging tightly, or her back pressed up flush against Adora’s front. It doesn’t matter how they sleep, as long as it’s together. But sleep is all they have time for. Turns out, the ending of a war is busier than she thought it would be.</p>
<p class="p1">It takes a week and a half for them to get an important night, a night for more than just recharging and preparing for the next day. Bright Moon was hit more severely than anyone expected both by Prime’s destruction, and by the Heart, but after three entire days of the combined work of spell-work and Perfuma’s magic, the castle could welcome back its residents.</p>
<p class="p1">It takes the Best Friend Squad a few extra nights before they separate from sleeping in one room. The weight of a war lifting from their shoulders was hard to believe, even in such a new era. Catra never realized how much she missed sleeping in a room full of beating hearts and soft breathing instead of just her own shallow pulse. Sure, Sparkles sometimes mumbles in her sleep, and maybe the group presence is sometimes stifling, but Catra is reluctant to give it up.</p>
<p class="p1">But the time comes, and so, nearly two weeks after the turn of the war, Catra finds herself alone with Adora, in her (their) room. It’s odd, going through the routine of getting ready for bed. In the Horde, it was mechanical. During the war, so ragged and so far apart from each other, Catra rarely slept unless absolutely necessary. In Mara’s ship, she could barely stop from holding her breath, distrustful of a good thing.</p>
<p class="p1">The night that matters isn’t unique, not in the grand scheme of things, not if the future is as expensive as the past.</p>
<p class="p1">But it matters in the moment, in that it is the first. The first of many, yes, but still the first.</p>
<p class="p1">And now, as she lays on her back on Adora’s (and her) bed, Catra can watch Adora visibly decide on whether or not to change into different clothes. She stays quiet, watching Adora’s thought process, until she finally tugs off her shirt but leaves on her undershirt and leggings, then comes and lays on her stomach next to Catra.</p>
<p class="p1">This is new; this chance to simply lay next to each other, purposefully close. Catra can turn on her side and place a hand on Adora’s back, and it’s real. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s not an impossible fantasy anymore. Adora’s shoulders are pliant and warm under Catra’s palm, and she doesn’t disappear when Catra presses her fingertips intentionally deep into the warmth. She doesn’t use her claws, doesn’t need to, because Adora is <em>real, </em>she’s awake, and she’s next to Catra.</p>
<p class="p1">Staring at her.</p>
<p class="p1">Her eyes are so blue. As a kid, Catra used to wonder if Adora’s eyes were a separate color from the rest of the world, some kind of miracle in a sea of muted grays and bleeding reds and sickly greens. They seemed too impossibly clear, too beautiful to belong somewhere so dark as the Fright Zone. But those thoughts were washed away and spit out as Catra grew, grew up and away from clear, piercing blue.</p>
<p class="p1">They watch each other a lot, now. Catra likes it, even if it makes her uncomfortable sometimes. There’s a pressure in Adora’s gaze, a heavy pull of responsibility, a push in Catra’s chest to push herself up and try better, try harder. It’s not always there, though.</p>
<p class="p1">Like now. Soft, her gaze is soft. In the silence of the room, more of a silence than they’ve experienced in longer than she can say, Catra doesn’t feel weighed down by Adora’s gaze at all.</p>
<p class="p1">They stay like that for longer than Catra bothers to note. Eventually, though, Catra closes her eyes, then nuzzles closer, pressing her nose to Adora’s forehead. It makes Adora breathe out a laugh, and then Catra can feel Adora turning under her hand, two strong arms reaching out and around Catra’s torso, pulling her ever closer.</p>
<p class="p1">But Catra isn’t one to be outdone. She traces her hand down Adora’s back, over her waist, across her stomach and back. It makes Adora shudder, which makes Catra do it again. They’re both on their sides now, mirrored curves, touching everywhere they can save for a warm bubble between their ribcages. She lets her hand continue to trace Adora’s waist, but when Adora starts to mimic her, Catra goes still.</p>
<p class="p1">Adora doesn’t stop. Her hand is firm, strong, but her touch is delicate. Catra, in only her underclothes, shivers at Adora’s palm against her bare side. Adora traces the soft fur along Catra’s spine, and Catra exhales sharply.</p>
<p class="p1">She could kiss Adora.</p>
<p class="p1">They do that now. It would distract Adora.</p>
<p class="p1">But she doesn’t. She lets Adora’s hand do what it will, tracing invisible patterns against her spine and across her ribs. It tickles, in a thrilling, tense way. It makes Catra’s breath stutter as Adora’s careful fingers trace the lines of her stomach, up to her sternum. Even through fabric, Catra’s purr rumbles, low and soft. It makes Adora smile, Catra has noticed. Adora always smiles when she purrs. Funny. Adora’s smile is often what causes Catra to purr.</p>
<p class="p1">In a slow realization, Catra notices she never let her hand go back to tracing along Adora’s side. Adora sighs a little when Catra’s hand pushes up her side, around to her shoulder blade, down her back.</p>
<p class="p1">In a moment of curious bravery, Catra slips her hand under the hem of Adora’s undershirt, pressing her fingers into the skin of Adora’s hip.</p>
<p class="p1">Then, up, up, up Adora’s body, and Catra’s pauses, then pushes her hand up to rest on Adora’s bare chest, below her collarbone, above her heart, shirt pushed up around Catra’s wrist. It’s not a gesture with any expectation, and Adora breathes into Catra’s palm steadily, but her hand stills on Catra’s hip, fingers overlapping with her brief’s waistline.</p>
<p class="p1">Again, they stay like that, breathing into a shared space, watching each other in the dark. Catra’s ears feel like their tingling in the silence, her tail twitches against Adora’s leg.</p>
<p class="p1">It’s the first time they’ve done this. It’s not the first time she’s had her hand up Adora’s shirt, but it’s the first time it <em>matters.</em> They’re allowed to do this, now. They’re allowed to have a night where all they do is lay together, touching in more places than not.</p>
<p class="p1">It’s the first time, the first night, where Catra knows this is where she’s supposed to be, where she’s allowed to simply exist without any expectations or rules or threats. She can be selfish, just a little bit, in how she splays her fingers against Adora’s soft skin. She can lean into Adora’s touch. She can lean forward and kiss the spot between Adora’s miracle-blue eyes, watch a little wrinkle form, and smooth it out again with another kiss. She can ignore how loud her purr gets when Adora scratches gently at the spot between her shoulder blades, then up her neck, between her ears, through her choppy hair. She can bask in the too-warm feeling of Adora’s breath on her cheeks, so close.</p>
<p class="p1">They can fall asleep like that, on top of the covers, wrapped around each other without a care for how they’ll wake up, or who might see. And Catra lets herself, she lets herself relax into Adora, lets herself trust the night to hold them together.</p>
<p class="p1">It’s not the only time they’ll sleep like this, but it’s still the first; the first night they let themselves matter like this.</p>
<p class="p1">It matters.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yall ever just. remember catradora and cry tears of sheer joy.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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